Taylor Hendricks and Brice Sensabaugh need a big final stretch to stay relevant
By Chad Porto
The Utah Jazz may have someone special in point guard Keyonte George. While he lacks any defensive skills to give one hope for, he's shown to have a great explosive first step, solid ball-handling skills and a developing shot that was admittedly not expected to arrive so soon. He's got potential; not so much that you don't trade him for a star, but he's got enough to factor in as a building block for the future.
Taylor Hendricks and Brice Sensabaugh? Not so much. The Jazz are not going to wait forever for a player to develop, as we saw when they traded second-year forward Ochai Agbaji. Agbaji was one of the pieces the Jazz wanted from the Cleveland Cavaliers in the Donvoan Mithell trade and arrived as a rookie looking for a spot on the team. Two inconsistent years in Salt Lake City later, and he's gone.
The Jazz aren't going to sacrifice progress for youth. Clearly. So it's not a stretch to say that the two youngsters in Hendricks and Sensbaughg need big outings over the last 10 games to warrant sticking around in the rotation next season.
Hendricks has shown a physicality that is very appealing as a defender, but his offensive skillset is lacking. He can't bang with the bigger bodies down low to get easy points in the paint and his outside shot is wildly inconsistent. He does have a defensive mindset, however and that is very appealing.
Sensabaugh, however, has flamed out. A 40% shooter in college from three, the rookie forward has not played well at all at the NBA level and is shooting just 22% from three. While he was a much later pick than Hendricks (9th), Sensabaugh (28th) was still seen as a good get for the Jazz. So much so that the Jazz gave up on Agbaji in part due to Sensabaugh being a carbon copy clone in style and function to Agbaji.
Right now, baring a horrendous offseason where no major moves happen, neither man should be in the rotation, let alone starting for the Jazz come October. The team needs to get guys who make the team better, and right now neither man really does. They'll get some more shots in the Summer League and training camp to prove the naysayers wrong, but these final 10 games are truly the litmus test to see if the team should factor them into bigger roles for next season.